Marketing is always about decisions. Many companies and brands want to target every possible consumer; however, this is one of the biggest mistakes a brand can make. Products and brands have to decide what is the right target to be more efficient in reaching them; marketing is about knowing who to focus on and who not to.

As a result, segmentation is critical to marketing because it helps a company reaching the right audiences by dividing them into groups of similar consumers and customers.

To do this, first, we need to understand all possible segments, then we need to know the needs of each segment, and finally, we have to find information about them. These segments can be defined by different factors, like age, gender, income level, or geographical location. For example, there is a major difference between a coffee drinker in New York City vs. someone who lives on the outskirts of Kansas. However, these factors should not be the drivers in your segmentation; the needs and wants of each of the segments should be. For example, you should only segment by age if you first find out that people of different ages make buying decisions differently when thinking about your offering or truly have different needs. In my students and clients, I have seen this mistake many times, they first try to divide by age or territory, or gender and then try to see how this segment use the product; the process should be vice-versa; first, we understand the different uses are, and then if they correspond with segment descriptors, these descriptors can be:

– Geographical location

– Income level

– Demographics (age, gender, education).

– Psychographics (personality type)

After segmenting, the company has to identify which segment it wants to target; you have to ask yourself first about the specific characteristics of each segment, is growing? How attractive is it? Ten about the competition strength and weaknesses in each segment and finally about your own fit in the segment.

After segmenting and identifying the segment to target, the next step is to develop a customer persona. A customer persona is an archetype of your target segment; it means that they are concrete with their own needs and wants. It is a fictional version of this segment to be more clear on who they are.

There are different techniques for developing a good customer persona, like surveys or interviews. You ask the segment about common patterns that you found in segmentation to give some personality traits. In my experience, as long as it is based on solid information and research, any tool for developing a customer segment will work.

Many factors go into segmenting a target audience. Knowing these key points can help businesses better develop campaigns to reach consumers at an opportune time, on channels they use most often, and with the best content for each target group within their desired persona.

If you want help segmenting your target audience or need assistance developing a customer segment to better achieve success in your business efforts, I would love to hear from you!